Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this important issue. A number of local drugs task forces in the city-wide drugs crisis campaign and many other organisations connected to dealing with the drug problem are campaigning strongly on the issue. Since the establishment of the Criminal Assets Bureau in 1996, those of us who have been involved in trying to cope with and take steps to deal with the drug problem have asked that the money seized by CAB would be ploughed back into the local communities from which it came. This is money that has, by and large, been made on the backs of ordinary men and women from ordinary communities when drug barons have taken fine teenagers and turned them into heroin and cocaine addicts.

Over the years the CAB has been eminently successful. It is one of the finest organisations we have set up to counteract the drug business, which is enormous and estimated to be approximately €1 billion, making it one of the most successful businesses in the country and one that is blooming in this time of recession - there is no recession in the drugs trade. Already, the CAB has collected nearly €120 million from the drug barons in taxes that it has managed to obtain and it has over €70 million under interim restraint orders and €35 million under final restraint orders. All of this money will come into the Exchequer kitty in the coming years. As matters stand, we must wait seven years before this money can be used by the State but, nonetheless, it goes into the Exchequer and is not used for purposes related to the drugs trade.

At present, over 400 people die annually from drug-related causes, which is in excess of the number who die on our roads. Gangland crime, violence and shootings are very much related to the drugs trade, which is now the major form of criminality in this country. Moreover, this type of gangland activity terrorises communities and is a major threat to the well-being of the citizen. Of course, the fact that people are addicts, particularly in times of recession, means they will commit crimes to feed their addictions so as we know, burglaries and larcenies are on the increase at present.

All of this could be dealt with if we put enough money back into the disadvantaged communities that particularly bear the brunt. This should be done through treatment, prevention and rehabilitation facilities, as well as dial-to-stop-drug-dealing programmes such as the one the Minister launched last September, which provides a confidential telephone line for those drug addicts and their relatives who are afraid to go to the Garda. It is services like this that make the difference. The only way we can succeed in this area is if we can ring-fence a certain amount of money that would be used in the communities to maintain the services that are in place.

The Minister has been doing his best to prevent cutbacks in this area but, nevertheless, there have cutbacks in the areas of drugs services, drug projects, drug treatment facilities, community-based programmes and drugs task forces and, of course, the dial-to-stop-drug-dealing campaign will come to an end in September. We need to use this money in the best way possible, namely, to ring-fence the money that has been seized by the CAB given that it, in turn, was seized from disadvantaged and deprived communities, in particular from youngsters and families whose lives are being destroyed. Let us put it back into schools, facilities and programmes and let us fight this drug trade.

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